Studies in History and Philosophy of Biological and Biomedical Sciences 41 (2010) 125–134 Contents lists available at ScienceDirect Studies in History and Philosophy of Biological and Biomedical Sciences journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/shpsc Instruments and demonstrations in the astrological curriculum: evidence from the University of Vienna, 1500–1530 Darin Hayton Haverford College, 370 Lancaster Avenue, Haverford, PA 19041, USA article info abstract Keywords: Historians have used university statutes and acts to reconstruct the official astrology curriculum for stu- Astrology dents in both the arts and medical faculties, including the books studied, their order, and their relation to University of Vienna other texts. Statutes and acts, however, cannot offer insight into what actually happened during lectures Curriculum and in the classroom: in other words, how and why astrology was taught and learned in the medieval uni- Astrolabes Georg Tannstetter versity. This paper assumes that the astrology curriculum is better understood as the set of practices that Andreas Stiborius constituted it and gave it meaning for both masters and students. It begins to reconstruct what occurred in the classroom by drawing on published and unpublished lecture notes. These offer insight into how masters presented the material as they did, and why. The paper argues three points: first, the teaching of astrology centered on demonstrations involving astrological instruments: specifically, various kinds of paper astrolabes. Second, the astrological instruction focused on conveying the pragmatics of astrology rather than esoteric, theoretical issues. Finally, astrology as it was taught in the arts curriculum was explicitly intended to provide a foundation for students who would advance to study medicine at the university. Ó 2010 Published by Elsevier Ltd. When citing this paper, please use the full journal title Studies in History and Philosophy of Biological and Biomedical Sciences 1. Introduction In this first lecture Perlach worked through the symbols for the zodiacal signs and the planets. Although the notes end abruptly On the first Thursday in March, 1519, students gathered to hear after Perlach’s introductory remarks, they provide a tantalizing Andreas Perlach, a young master in mathematics and astrology at glimpse at the astrological curriculum at the University of Vienna, the University of Vienna, deliver his opening lecture on almanacs. a curriculum that thrived below the surface of officialdom. Per- Perlach began with the basics: lach’s lecture on almanacs occurred on a Thursday afternoon, a time typically reserved for extraordinary lectures. Falling outside The Arabic ‘Almanac’, Latin ‘Diale’ or ‘Diurnale’, Greek ‘Ephe- the strictly prescribed curriculum, extraordinary lectures offered merides’, is a book in which the planets are presented from masters a chance to lecture on and students the opportunity to day to day. Note: each planet and each zodiacal sign has a cer- hear subjects that were not fully treated in ordinary lectures. At tain resemblance or likeness to its symbol, which denotes that the University of Vienna, the students had to pay particularly high actual planet, and therefore those symbols are not assigned by fees to hear extraordinary lectures. Masters there supplemented chance or accident. Accordingly the symbol of Aries is as follows their income through these fees, provided they offered lectures , which resembles two horns like those of a ram.1 E-mail address: [email protected] 1 ‘A magistro Andrea perlachio Stiro Super Almanach collectanea 1519 die jovis ante Esto mihi. Almanach arabum, Diale/Diurnale latinum, Ephemerides grecum est liber in quo astra de die in diem destribunture. Nota Quilibet planeta eciam quodlibet zodiaci signum quandam habent commemenciam [sic] seu similitudinem ad suum characterem qui ipsum denotat non ergo fortuitu et a casu illi characteres impositi sunt. Est igitur arietis character talis qui videtur duo cornua qualia arietis sunt representare’ (Andreas Perlach, ‘Super almanach collectanea’, ÖNB Hss. Cvp S.n. 4265, fol. 307v). 1369-8486/$ - see front matter Ó 2010 Published by Elsevier Ltd. doi:10.1016/j.shpsc.2010.04.008 126 D. Hayton / Studies in History and Philosophy of Biological and Biomedical Sciences 41 (2010) 125–134 that would attract students willing to pay those fees.2 Simply be- that has largely escaped notice. Stiborius’ and Tannstetter’s lec- cause these lectures were not prescribed, however, did not necessar- tures reveal the importance of astronomical and astrological ily make them ephemeral or insignificant. Perlach’s lectures in 1519 instruments in the astrological curriculum, and how these instru- apparently found a receptive audience and became part of his teach- ments were used as demonstration devices to convey practical ing at the university for the next thirty years. During this time he ex- knowledge. Finally, their lectures uncover the close interactions panded and refined his lectures on almanacs. In 1551 he published a between the Arts Faculty and the Medical Faculty, at least in regard thick textbook based on his lectures, his Commentaria to the use of instruments in the practice of astrology. ephemeridium.3 The University of Vienna presents something of a puzzle for his- 2. Andreas Stiborius and astrological instruments torians of astronomy and astrology. During the fifteenth century the university was alma mater to Johannes de Gmunden, Georg Andreas Stiborius began his career at the University of Ingols- von Peuerbach, and Johannes Regiomontanus, who were central tadt, where he lectured on astronomical topics, including the use to developments in astronomy and astrology throughout Europe. of instruments such as the astrolabe.10 In 1497 he left his teaching Yet there is little evidence of advanced instruction in astronomy position there and moved to Vienna. Not long after he arrived at the or astrology by any of these masters. Historians have expected to University of Vienna, Stiborius began holding lectures entitled ‘Liber 4 find their innovations reflected in the curriculum. However, the umbrarum’.11 The ‘Liber umbrarum’ were Stiborius’ foundational flourishing astronomical and astrological activity in Vienna seems lectures on various methods of stereographic projection and the uses to have had little impact on the university. Unlike the universities of astronomical instruments, usually different types of astrolabes. of Pavia, Bologna and Krakow, the University of Vienna had no chair Although he had probably held similar lectures in Ingolstadt, he re- 5 in astrology. Official documents provide no trace of Gmunden’s, vised them when he came to Vienna, drawing on information spe- Peuerbach’s, or Regiomontanus’s developments in astronomical cific to Vienna for his examples. His descriptions and calculations and astrological theory and practice. Indeed, the statutes, which pre- regularly use the south face of the university’s tower as a point of scribed the official courses of study students were expected to at- reference for the polar elevation, the zenith, the latitude, or other tend, suggest that the curriculum had ossified early in the fifteenth celestial descriptions.12 These lectures introduced various methods century and did not change until the reforms under Archduke Ferdi- of determining the important astronomical information for any gi- 6 nand in the 1520s. The Acts of the Arts Faculty as well as the Acts of ven location and then explained how to use this information to the Medical Faculty are similarly silent regarding any curricular establish the time of day, the rising and setting of constellations, 7 innovations or changes. Although Peuerbach composed what be- and the degree of the rising sign. The ‘Liber umbrarum’ also formed came the most important textbook on astronomy, he lectured on the basis for Stiborius’ more sophisticated lectures on astrological 8 the Latin poets Juvenal, Horace and Virgil. Historians have sug- instruments and played an important role in his larger series of lec- gested that the interesting curricular developments occurred ‘below tures at the University of Vienna. Although he treated summarily the 9 the threshold of officialdom’. We can begin to recover the contours stereographic projection used to make a standard planispheric astro- of the astrological curriculum by looking closely at students’ lecture labe, Stiborius spent most of his time and effort discussing the meth- notes that survive from the early sixteenth century. ods of stereographic projection that underlay various universal During the early decades of the sixteenth century a close-knit astrolabes. group of masters at the University of Vienna were responsible for The standard planispheric astrolabe was based on a projection much of the education in astrology and astronomy there. This of the heavenly sphere onto a surface coplanar with the equator. group included masters recruited from neighboring universities, Because the visible portion of the sky varies with latitude, such a such as Johannes Stabius and Andreas Stiborius who came from projection is accurate for only a narrow latitude. Consequently, a the University of Ingolstadt, as well as students who had been edu- standard astrolabe usually had a number of plates for different lat- cated elsewhere but came to Vienna to become university masters, itudes, often for specific cities such as Rome, Paris, Vienna, or Lon- such as Georg Tannstetter. By the second decade of the sixteenth don. A universal astrolabe,
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